Tea for Three
"Tea For Three" was the 4th episode of the 5th series of Only Fools And Horses, airing on the 21st September 1986 with a viewing figure of 16.5 million. Derek "Del Boy" Trotter and Rodney Trotter clash over a girl, Trigger's niece Lisa. Del burns Rodney on the solarium, and in revenge Rodney arranges for Del to go hang gliding, especially as Del has lied and said he was a Para to Lisa. Synopsis Albert Trotter is in The Nags Head singing contest tonight. Derek "Del Boy" Trotter tries to sell Mike Fisher a home solarium. Trigger says he niece Lisa is in Peckham to visit him. Del and Rodney Trotter say that he remembers Lisa's mum, a fair sort, ugly but a fair sort, and nicknamed her Miss 999 as he only ever phoned her in an emergency. Del and Rodney see Lisa and she is a very attractive woman. They then chat her up and start bickering about who should take Lisa out for dinner first. Lisa suggests they all have tea together so they can talk about the old times. A day or so later, Albert is having a sun tan under the home solarium. Del comes in with some groceries for tonights dinner. Rodney says he bought some cheese. Rodney then has a go on the home solarium. Albert says he is going off to The Legion as he is sick of Del and Rodney arguing. Rodney falls asleep and Del turns the temperature up on the sub bed. That night, Del is chatting Lisa up. Rodney comes out of the kitchen with a pot of cheese. He is very red in the face, red and blotchy. Del makes jokes at Rodney and while talking to Lisa he says he used to be a paratrooper, and he used to date her mum, Del says he nicknamed her The Rose Of Peckham, Rodney tries to cut in with the truth but Del quickly cuts back in and talks about the cinema. Lisa then gets ready to leave and Del goes to get the keys. She is getting a train back to Hampshire in the morning to have a day with some hang gliders. While Del is getting the keys, Rodney says Del has a birthday coming up and his ambition is to hang glide. He asks Lisa if she can arrange for Del to have a fly but not to tell him until the day, so they can surprise him. The next day, Del is asked if he can go up in one of those "wing things". Lisa introduces Del and Rodney to a man called Andy Williams. He is going to get Del in all the gear. Del has said he used to be a paratrooper and a Green Beret so will have to agree to a hang glide to keep his pride intact. Del has a quiet word with Rodney while Andy and Lisa get the glider ready. Rodney comes up with a suggestion that as Del is ready to go up in the clouds, that Rodney comes rushing over with the car phone to tell Del there is an urgent call come through from someone and Del has to rush back to London immediately. Del then pretends to be keen to get up in the clouds. A few minutes later, Del is kitted up and ready to take off. He calls out to Rodney asking if he can hear their car phone ringing. Rodney says no, they dont have a car phone. He tells Del to get up as high as he can, he may get a tan. Rodney wants to pay Del back for tampering with the solarium, making Rodney go red. Del whispers to himself that he will get Rodney for this. Del has to keep his pride intact so takes off in the glider but Andy and Lisa wonder where Del is going as Andy had told him to stay close to the ridge on a nearby hill. Del is heading out to sea. 12 hours later, that night, Rodney and Albert are back in London. Rodney is worried, wondering where Del is, as he has been hang gliding for 12 hours. Rodney is studying a map when Trigger and Mike show up with Del in a wheelchair, who apologises to Rodney for tampering with the solarium controls. Trigger says they got a Green Line bus back from the hospital. Rodney says they don't send home disabled people by bus and Del is not paralysed, even after Del says he ended up cluttering into an aerial and landing on a courting couple, who had to put their wedding back 6 months. Del says Radio rentals will charge him for the aerial and he has to pay for a new sunroof on their Sierra. The mention of the husband and wife to be who Del injured, in turn reminds Trigger to tell the others of Lisa's wedding to Andy. Del thinks Lisa getting married has all been a bit sudden but Trigger says she has been engaged for over a year to Andy. Trig says that is why she came back to London, to buy a wedding dress in Oxford Street and to catch up with old friends. Mike says he will open up the pub for a celebration drink and him and Trigger leave, Albert says he will join them in a minute. Del and Rodney realise that Lisa was engaged all along and all their efforts have all been for nothing. Albert laughs and calls them a pair of wallies. Cast Main cast *Derek "Del Boy" Trotter - David Jason *Rodney Trotter - Nicholas Lyndhurst *Albert Trotter - Buster Merryfield *Trigger - Roger Lloyd Pack *Mike Fisher - Kenneth MacDonald Guest cast *Andy Williams - Mark Colleano *Lisa - Gerry Cowper *Singer - Joan Baxter Previous Episode The Longest Night Next Episode Video Nasty Observations *The VHS release and the DVD release of this episode have several lines of dialogue cut from the episode. Scenes and sentences cut from the VHS and DVD releases are when Del says how Rodney is a year younger than Lisa. Also the scene of Albert singing "Ada" is cut which included Del saying "What is that soppy old duffer up to?". More cut scenes and sentences was when Del also tells Albert to "Put on some trousers as there are a lot of stray dogs on this estate". And a number of sentences in the dinner scene are cut, where Del remarks about Rodney's tan going "flaky and scabby" and how the home solarium "was not faulty and I spent two and a half hours under it", and Rodney saying about the different kinds of cheeses, and Lisa thanking them for the dinner. However, all of this was left intact on the iTunes version. *When the hanglider scene was filmed, David Jason, who is a trained hang glider pilot, scuba diver, and swims with dolphins, actually wanted to fly the hang glider himself, but the BBC said it was too risky for him to fly it, for insurance reasons. *When Del panics about being scared to Rodney, Rodney responds: "No, you can't do that. A Green Beret with a headache?" in reference to Del's lie about being in the Parachute Regiment. This is incorrect: the green beret belongs to the Royal Marines, whilst the Parachute Regiment sport a maroon beret. Blunders * Rodney says he used to play with Lisa when they were children, but in "Big Brother", Rodney had to be introduced to Trigger as if they had never met before. * White not paralysed, in this episode, Del at least had to recieve outpatient treatment at a hospital, as seen with the bandages and neck support, yet in "Sickness and Wealth", when Del was admitted to hospital due to not telling the doctors the truth about his lifestyle, Rodney said Del had never been in hospital before as a patient. Surely the A&E treatment he got in "Tea for Three" would count as a hospital stay. Locations seen *The Nag's Head (main bar) *The Trotters flat (living room, entrance hallway) *Hill in countryside *Various fields (ariel views from the hang glider) *Countryside panorama (Del going out to sea) Category:Only Fools And Horses Episodes. Category:1986 episodes.